The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc

Another version that explicitly argues that there’s nothing worse than starting a war and then losing the resolve to follow through to the end, suspending operations with the job half done and proclaiming the virtues of diplomacy, that is, the art of the deal. Poor in most respects, with an annoyingly twitchy performance from Milla Jovovich. One might imagine a spin-off movie where Vincent Cassel reprises his role and we learn all about the later life of Gilles de Rais. The imagined scenes with Dustin Hoffman are the most interesting aspect. Unlike most films about this tragic heroine (it seems), it does depict the events in her story that occurred at Compiègne, which happens to be the site of four moments of world-historical significance: (1) Jeanne’s capture; (2) the signing of the armistice after the First World War; (3) the signing of the so-called Second Armistice in June 1940 between France and Germany; (4) my first ever meeting with Bernard Stiegler, at the Université de Compiègne, where he taught for many years and where in 1993 he had set up the COSTECH Laboratory.